New life for woman with multiple spleens

KOLKATA: Having even a mouthful of food would make Sharmistha Kar breathless. The Habra resident was perplexed as to why she would run into respiratory distress each time she took a bite. The problem aggravated around four years ago when she decided to seek medical help. But an upper gastrointestinal endoscopy revealed no abnormality.
After visiting several hospitals for the past four years and having numerous tests done, her problem was diagnosed recently.Not only it was found that the 30-year-old’s heart was placed on the right side instead of the normal left, her left diaphragm was abnormally thinned out and she had multiple spleens instead of a single one.
“Given the complexity of the condition, hardly any hospital we approached wanted to operate on her. Wherever we went, we were told that the surgery was tough and risky and suggested that we seek help from a hospital with better facilities,” said Laskhmi Dey, the patient’s sister-in-law.
Sarmistha’s family finally decided to seek help at SSKM Hospital. Doctors attended to her and suggested that she be operated immediately. She was admitted on April 4 in the cardiothoracic and vascular Surgery (CTVS) department under Dr Subhendu Sekhar Mahapatra.
After reconfirming her condition through a number of investigations, Mahapatra and his team — Amanul Hoque, Swarnendu Dutta, Soumayjit Ghosh and Debajyati Mondal — put their heads together for the treatment. They decided to take on the surgery, which was conducted two weeks ago.
On opening the left chest of the patient, doctors were surprised to see the patient’s stomach and large intestine completely occupying the left hemithorax. Her left lung was compressed and collapsed. There were multiple small spleens.
“We released the stomach and the large intestine from the chest cavity and pushed it back into the abdomen first, then the diaphragm was reconstructed by polypropylene mesh,” said one of the doctors.
The patient’s condition was rare and complex because of the multiple congenital abnormalities. Doctors decided to operate on her only to correct the diaphragm since this was the only cause of health concern.
“Though the heart is placed on the right side it was not creating any problem. So we decided to leave it untouched. Now there is no problem with the diaphragm and the lung is back to normal function,” said Mahapatra.
The patient was discharged on Tuesday. Back in her Habra home, the family members said she was doing well.